Tag: quotes

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Engagement

How Will You Approach the New Year?

Are you preparing to greet 2020 with hopeful anticipation? Or perhaps planning to play it safe with low expectations?

Like many people, I have mixed feelings about the new year — a new beginning offers new opportunities as well as uncertainty. But I’ve come to understand that my expectations and attitude about this new year and decade make all the difference.

“When we have higher expectations at our core thinking and philosophies then it becomes easier and easier to identify and react to the bombardment of negative’s that are thrown at us throughout our daily routines.” Art Costello, author of Expectation Therapy

That’s why I’ve chosen to feature this wonderful and timely excerpt from my dear friend, Yvonne DiVita, entrepreneur, blogger, and author of A Little Book of Big Thoughts.

Happy Day to the World 

Today, the sun is out. All’s right with our world.

Yes, life has become harder … We all wonder what the New Year will bring, and some of us are dreading it.

Some of us, however, are celebrating friendship, camaraderie, good health, love of family and pets, and expectations for better times. I am one of them.

There is a world of opportunity for all coming – an exciting year waiting for you to create the bells and whistles that will lift up those around you …

… and by doing so, lift yourself up, onto the path of success. I’ll meet you there.

And I’ll be there as well. Wishing you a fulfilling and successful New Year!

[Photo: Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay]

Categories
Engagement

What to Ask When You Want to Feel Grateful

[Note: Not just in the spirit of Thanksgiving, but all year long we can be thankful. That’s why I love this post from Curt Rosengren, “Passion Catalyst” dedicated to helping others “love their work and change their world in a way that feels personally meaningful to them.”

Special thanks to Curt for allowing me to share this on my blog. For more great content, check out his Aliveness & Impact Blog.]

35 Gratitude-Prompting Questions That Can Change Your Life
by Curt Rosengren

How much is there in your life to be grateful for? How frequently do you notice it? If you’re like most of us, you’re probably leaving a lot of opportunity for gratitude on the table. And that’s unfortunate, because it can have a powerfully positive impact on your life.

I often call gratitude the well-being wonder-drug. Extensive research has shown a wide range of benefits, including increased happiness, improved relationships, better physical health, and less depression. It can even help you sleep better.

There are many ways to incorporate a gratitude practice into your life, from gratitude journaling, to writing a daily thank you letter, to making it a goal to find 10 things to say thank you for each day.

However you decide to bring gratitude into your day, it all starts with one thing – noticing!

Until you start to build that automatic gratitude muscle, that can sometimes feel easier said than done. Most of our lives are awash in things to be grateful for, but we are so busy with life, its worries and preoccupations, that we don’t always see them.

To help you get started, here are 35 gratitude-prompting questions to explore.

  1. Who do I appreciate?
  2. How am I fortunate?
  3. What material possessions am I thankful for?
  4. What abilities do I have that I’m grateful for?
  5. What about my surroundings (home/neighborhood/city/etc.) am I thankful for?
  6. What experiences have I had that I am grateful for?
  7. What happened today/yesterday/this week/this month/this year that I am grateful for?
  8. What opportunities do I have that I am thankful for?
  9. What have others in my life done that I am thankful for?
  10. What have others done that I am benefiting from in my life (even if I don’t know who those people are)?
  11. What relationships am I thankful for?
  12. What am I taking for granted that, if I stop to think about it, I am grateful for?
  13. What is there about the challenges/difficulties I have experienced (or am currently experiencing) that I can be thankful for? (e.g., What have I learned? How have I grown?)
  14. What is different today than it was a year ago that I’m thankful for?
  15. What insights have I gained that I am grateful for?
  16. What am I able to offer others that I am grateful for?
  17. What opportunities to help others am I thankful for?
  18. What can I find to be grateful for in this very moment? (Challenge yourself. Make it a game.)
  19. What do I see right now (with your eyes) that I can be grateful for?
  20. What is associated with something I’m grateful for that I can be grateful for? (For example, if you’re grateful for the cup of coffee you’re enjoying, there’s the potential to be grateful for everything that went into it – the farmer who grew it, the earth it grew in, the sunshine and rain, the people who picked it, the business and people who involved in getting it from there to where you are, the roasters, etc.).
  21. What can I enjoy right now that I can be grateful for? (For example, looking out my window I’m enjoying the color contrast of a branch of a juniper tree that has both live green and dead brown tips – when I really stop and notice it, it’s quite pretty.)
  22. What do I hear that I am grateful for (birds? music? the sound of children giggling?)
  23. What do I normally take for granted that I am grateful for (clean and readily available drinking water? flush toilets? an abundance of food?)
  24. What interaction(s) have I had lately that I’m grateful for? (the funny barista? the gentle smile from the person you walked past in the grocery store? the compliment from a co-worker?)
  25. What have I learned lately that I’m grateful for?
  26. Who am I grateful to for teaching me something lately?
  27. What do I get to do that I’m grateful for? (hobbies? work you enjoy? helping someone? going to a good movie?)
  28. How have other people helped me that I’m grateful for?
  29. What opportunities to help others have I had that I can be grateful for?
  30. What do I find fascinating? Can I be grateful for that fascination?
  31. What emotional feelings am I grateful for right now?
  32. What physical sensations am I grateful for right now?
  33. What is the subtlest thing I can notice that I can be grateful for? (a gentle breeze? the lingering smell of a delicious meal?)
  34. What have I seen others do that I can feel grateful for seeing (chasing somebody down to return money they dropped? giving up a seat on a crowded bus? giving a stranger a genuine compliment?)
  35. How is my life made easier? Who contributes to that?

My own gratitude practice ebbs and flows. When it flows – when I prime the pump and really start noticing what’s there – it never fails to blow me away how much there is to be grateful for. And the more I notice to be grateful for, the better it feels.

And my life isn’t particularly unusual or special. As you go deeper into gratitude, I have no doubt that you will find the same to be true for you.

Try making it a 30-day experiment. You could write a daily gratitude journal. Or keep a notebook with you and jot down things to be grateful for as you notice them. Maybe you can do a daily gratitude exchange with a friend or family member, sharing something you’re thankful for that day (perfect for the family dinner table). I particularly like the idea of taking one question a day and doing a deep dive using that question as a lens.

However you do it, gratitude is a gift you can give yourself that can pay big dividends.

[Image credit: photo by Gabrielle Henderson on Unsplash]

Categories
Engagement

At the Heart of a Successful Brand

This powerful statement is from the late Bob Wood, former Chairman of Wood Dining Services, whom I had the privilege of interviewing for my first book on internal marketing, Taking Care of the People Who Matter Most: A Guide to Employee-Customer Care. 

Bob was the epitome of an engaged leader who truly cared about his employees and customers as reflected in this description of the company culture:

“The Wood Company’s recipe for success is developing and nurturing its people.
We value and understand the difference they can make in pleasing our customers.”

I wish there were more inspired leaders like Bob who knew how to nourish a successful brand from the inside out.

Categories
Customer service Engagement

Internal vs. External Customers: Who Comes First?

Image by congerdesign from Pixabay

In many organizations there are employees who not only serve customers, they ARE customers.

These “internal” customers are employees who rely on the information and resources provided by fellow employees who work in support functions such purchasing, HR, accounting, IT/information, etc. The level of quality service and support that “internal” customers receive from them impacts their ability to effectively serve a firm’s “external” customers.

Players on the same team?
Consider this statement from a colleague in a customer-contact position who described the response her department received when requesting assistance from support employees in the organization’s parent company: “Sometimes we’re mildly ignored, and other times we’re barely tolerated or just dismissed.” Imagine the frustration she and her team experienced trying to do their jobs.

When internal customers have their business service needs taken care of by co-workers — getting prompt responses to questions and requested support — they can then take care of the company’s external customers. Conversely, when these employees get poor service that impedes their ability to effectively do their jobs, they make take out their frustrations on other employees as well as customers — all contributing to a less than satisfactory work environment.

So which customers come first?
The answer to this question is easy.

“Paradoxically, to achieve an emotionally connecting customer experience, employees come first, ahead of the customer.”  Tom Peters

It’s not that one group is more important than the other; both are critical to an organization’s success. The overarching reality is that the quality of the employee experience (that of all employees in supporting and/or internal customer roles) ultimately impacts the quality of the customer experience.

To paraphrase my often-cited quote: “If employees don’t feel valued, neither will customers – internal and external.”

[Feather/egg image by congerdesign from Pixabay. Chick image by Azkia A. Mardhiah from Pixabay]

 

Categories
Customer service Training & Development

3 Simple Ways to Engage Employees in a Better Customer Experience

Photo by Headway on Unsplash

Need to have your employees better understand and improve the customer experience?

Here are three simple approaches designed to do just that. Each one can be applied to engage employees in sharing their experiences and building on their ideas to take care of customers.

1. Consider the customer perspective 

“Smart people walk in the shoes of their customers. But wise people remove their own shoes first.”

Because empathy is critical to improving the customer experience, it’s valuable for employees to consider and discuss their own experience as consumers. You can engage them in discussing one or more of the following questions, such as:

  • Thinking about a recent experience you had as a customer, how would you describe the quality of that experience? What stood out for you that made it that way? … Based on that experience, would you recommend that company to a friend? Why or why not?
  • As a consumer, how can you tell whether a company is customer-centric?
  • How do you see who you are and what you offer through the customer’s eyes?
  • [Based on the responses to these questions:] What does this say about how we serve our customers? … How can we do better?

2. Consider employee impact 

Use notable quotes from the business press that will work well as discussion-starters to elicit employee reactions and ideas. Here are a few of my favorites:

  • “The easiest way to turn a service into an experience is to provide poor service – thus creating an memorable encounter of the unpleasant kind.” B. Joseph Pine II and James H. Gilmore, The Experience Economy
  • “Customers care about the degree to which you respect and value their business … If you provide customers with clues that you don’t value their business, then all the customer satisfaction in the world won’t help you.” David C. Lineweber
  • “If you respect the customer as a human being, and truly honor their right to be treated fairly and honestly, everything else is much easier.” Doug Smith
  • “Brands are built from within … [they] have very little to do with promises made through advertising. They’re all about promises met by employees.” Ian Buckingham

3. Consider combining both of the above approaches

Depending on how much time you have for discussion, you can start with the empathetic perspective and close with an applicable quote that supports delivering a positive customer experience. Or you can start with a quote and segue to discussing the customer’s perspective. As for selecting quotes, you can even invite employees to share a favorite or create their own.

Helpful tips

When you engage employees in these special discussions — whether as part of orientation, customer service training, staff meetings or retreats — you can elicit their understanding and ideas to better serve customers as well as co-workers who are “internal customers.”

Regardless of which of setting or approach(es) you use, it’s essential to conduct such discussions in a positive, non-threatening, and respectful setting. Your objective is twofold: 

  1. to encourage employees to comfortably share stories and actionable ideas that enable them to better serve customers, and
  2. avoid getting mired in a spiraling critique of complaints.

The key is to not dwell on negative barriers but focus on ways to overcome them.

And don’t forget the food (e.g., appropriate amounts of caffeine, water, sugar, healthy snacks, etc.) that can fuel the thinking and ideation process.

 

Categories
Engagement

Workplace Engagement: an Inspired Strategy

Image courtesy of https://peopleinsight.co.uk/

We know that people can show up for work fully engaged only to have their enthusiasm and energy chipped away over time; i.e., once engaged doesn’t mean always engaged.

That’s because numerous factors contribute to one’s engagement levels that include an employee’s personal situation (involving health, family, financial well-being, and support systems) and his/her workplace situation (the nature of the job, resources available, company culture, trust, etc.). This means individuals and the organizations they work for share responsibility for engagement: employees need to show up ready, willing, and able to do their best work in a positive environment in which management fully supports employees’ efforts to do their best.

I’ve worked with many people who are committed to doing their best regardless of personal challenges. Whether or not they’re able to maintain their engagement, however, depends on leadership and management effectiveness.

“The willingness of the employee culture can’t be demanded; it can only be inspired. … employee management is only the illusion of control. On their own, people will decide how tightly they’ll embrace a new strategy. Their decision will be affected by whether they’re inspired to do well, whether they have a role model of good performance, and whether they get reinforcement for their performance.” Stan Slap

An engaged workplace is not only inspired, it’s also intentional.

[Image courtesy of http://www.peopleinsight.co.uk/]

Categories
Engagement

Ghosting at Work: Harmful to Your Brand

Caspar-the-friendly-ghost may be harmless, but ghosting at work is not —  for either the individual or employer brand.

The practice of “ghosting” – when one person ends a relationship without warning or explanation – has spread from the dating scene to the workplace. It occurs when people:

  • Don’t show up for job interviews
  • Don’t show up for their first day on the job or don’t return to work after starting a new job
  • Quit with no notice.

The term “ghosting” may be new but the phenomenon is not, as I recently learned. The long-time owner of a retail service business shared her experience with new employees who didn’t return to work after lunch their first day on the job. She attributed it to an inability to admit dislike of the work and/or an inflated sense of self-importance; i.e., “I don’t need to let the boss know I don’t care to work here anymore.”

According to HR professional Tina R. Hamilton, “Ghosting is the new word for an old problem.

“Since I entered the world of HR in the 1980’s, employees no-showed for work or seemed to drop off the face of the earth, and applicants suddenly disappeared just when you thought you had a good one. It is an unfortunate situation [and] I think that, in some cases, employers can look within and see if there is anything more they could have done to keep the employee/applicant more engaged in the process or in the job.”

The economy and some employers are also partly to blame
Today’s low unemployment, in which employees have more job opportunities and companies are challenged to find and keep talent, is one reason for increased ghosting at work.

The quality of a company’s culture and leadership also impacts ghosting. Frustrated and/or burned out employees find it easier to disengage from a toxic situation by leaving without notice; i.e., “If the people in management don’t care about me, why should I care about them?”

Another contributing factor is the backlash to years of HR ghosting when prospective employees get no response to applying for jobs (with their resumes “falling into HR’s black hole”) and when serious job candidates hear nothing from a company after completing one or more interviews. Here’s Hamilton’s take on this:

“As far as employers notifying applicants, there are so many options with technology that can notify applicants automatically that there is almost no excuse to not notify applicants. Even if an employer does not have an applicant tracking system, they can save reject applicants with a simple email reply. It fairs poorly on the employer if they do not respond in some way, especially if it involves an applicant who has spent time in a live interview process.

“In a tight labor market like we have today, it is critical to have your company look its best in the eyes of the applicants.”

Regardless of the economy, employers and employees need to be professional and responsible when dealing with each other.

When it comes to communicating about applying for, starting, or leaving a job, any form of ghosting is unacceptable as it reflects poorly on the source. In this case, no news isn’t good news.

Categories
Engagement

Think Beyond “Giving Tuesday”

I have mixed feelings about Giving Tuesday. It’s timely in reaching consumers and making it convenient for them to engage in the “spirit of giving” at the beginning of the holiday spending season. It also adds to consumer frustration with increased solicitations through direct mail, special events, and online requests (e.g., GoFundMe campaigns, Facebook birthday requests, etc.).

I know fundraising professionals who aren’t excited about Giving Tuesday, yet feel compelled to participate for fear of missing out.

Beyond the Tuesday after Thanksgiving as a designated day for giving, every day presents an opportunity to recognize the value of all who give their money, time, and talent.

Why donors give …

“No one is useless in this world who lightens the burdens of another.” Charles Dickens

“We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give.” Winston Churchill

“Life is a gift, and it offers us the privilege, opportunity and responsibility to give something back by becoming more.” Anthony Robbins

“A little consideration, a little thought for others, makes all the difference.” Winnie-the-Pooh

What makes donors special …

“Donors want to make a difference in the world.” Simone Joyaux, nonprofit consultant & author

“A donor is a special type of person … who is willing to share their usually hard-earned resources to help others in need or to support a cause that is near to their heart … to improve the quality of life for others.” Michael Wilson, Lehigh Valley Community Foundation

“How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world.” Anne Frank

For all these reasons:

“Each donor, large and small, should be treated as a precious jewel.” Lona Farr, ACFRE

[Special thanks to Lona Farr, Robin Flemming, Debra Khateeb, Bernie Story, and Sarah Yunusov for contributing these quotes.]

Categories
Customer service Engagement

A Client-Inspired Wish

One of the most amazing clients I’ve had the privilege and joy of collaborating with for 25 years recently retired. I wish there were more managers like her because it would mean more engaged and productive workplaces. Let me tell you why.

Peg helped grow a successful university distance education department, having started at a time when distance education was in its infancy. She navigated the changing technology that transitioned from broadcasting live classes via satellite to online delivery of courses. [Because she isn’t comfortable with attention, I only use her first name in this post.]

To inspire others, here’s a sample of what made Peg an impressive manager.

Management approach
All jobs come with some degree of stress from conflicting goals, operational and budget issues, internal politics, etc. Acknowledging this, Peg approached her work as an ongoing challenge: “I simply focus on what needs to be done and how to make it happen. Not just to push ahead, but with concern for how it will affect customers, employees, and everyone involved.”

I saw this play out in everyday situations and in crisis. The latter was a case of “lost in space” when a satellite failed a few days before the start of a semester. Peg rallied her team to find workable options for students and client companies with minimal service disruption.

Customer-focus was another part of Peg’s success. Besides responsive customer service, she believed in client outreach and appreciation as key to building long-term relationships with students and their employers. “Our programs may be by distance, but not our relationships,” Peg was fond of saying.

Internal marketing 
Peg also focused on building relationships with employees and internal partners by:

  • investing in team members by encouraging their professional development
  • engaging employees in staff retreats for strategic planning, transition planning, and marketing planning
  • communicating and collaborating with faculty and staff to maximize program development
  • keeping employees, faculty, and administrators informed and “in the loop”
  • being accessible to and respectful of those she worked with.

Her sense of humor allowed staff to comfortably let off steam in a busy, sometimes stressful environment — another key attribute to creating an effective team and supportive office culture with minimal turnover.

I know my wish for more managers like Peg is not realistic, but I can wish for people to learn from her success.

 

 

Categories
Engagement Training & Development

Let Employees Out of the Bubble for Better Collaboration

Whether getting together in person for problem-solving, planning, or idea-sharing, many employees are thrilled with the opportunity to engage in active discussion when management is truly interested in their input.

I’ve seen the positive impact of these employee gatherings first-hand in my work as a facilitator and trainer. Individual, team, and organizational benefits of effective in-person working sessions include:

  • expanded internal resources through networking and relationship-building with co-workers
  • reduced silos via interdepartmental communication and teamwork
  • enhanced organizational capacity through shared learning, idea-exchange, and renewed focus around a common purpose.

Bringing together employees from different areas of a large organization may incur travel costs compared with lower-cost alternatives of webinars and teleconferences. But the benefits and overall value of connecting employees make a well planned face-to-face gathering a worthwhile investment.

Employee feedback

Here’s what employees say about their experience in these sessions from actual meeting evaluations:

  • It’s good to get out of our bubble and look at the big picture.
  • It was an excellent open forum to bounce ideas off of other employees.
  • Brings together what we’ve been trying to accomplish and articulate in a cohesive, common platform.
  • It provided a sense of team and togetherness.
  • Excellent opportunity to exchange ideas. We’re all in the same boat with common goals.

Want better collaboration and engagement?

“Regardless of how tech-savvy you may be, face-to-face meetings are still the most effective way to capture the attention of participants, engage them in the conversation, and drive productive collaboration.” – Michael Massari